Losing Hope | {BOOK 4}

89| I Don't Know

"So after everything... that's it. This is what nails me."

I sat on the toilet in the bathroom, Dean crouched in front of me. He'd just finished telling me my life story, and I had already started to forget pieces of it.

"No," Dean shook his head. "No, no, Ellie, i-it..."

He took a deep breath, looking up into my eyes.

"It's not gonna happen, alright?"

"Well, you just told me my whole life story," I pointed out. "And I gotta be honest, Dean, I... I can feel it, slipping out of my head. I mean, ganking monsters is one thing, but this..."

I put my head in my hands.

"You know, uh, we're gonna, um... We'll figure it out," he replied. "Alright? We will."

After pressing a kiss to the top of my head, he slipped out of the bathroom. Standing up, I moved over to the sink to splash some water on my face. Clutching the edges of the sink, I stared at my reflection in the mirror, taking a deep breath.

"Ah. Okay. My name is Eleanor Winchester. Dean is my husband, Sam is his brother. We have two kids, Maddie and Zep. Uh, Emilie Dawson is my mother. And Cast- Cass is my best friend."

I sighed, furrowing my brow as I tried to remember everything I'd just said.

"My name is Eleanor Wi- Winchester," I looked down, realizing I could barely remember my own name.

Looking back up in the mirror, I tried again.

"My name- my name is..."

I saw my reflection contort in terror as I struggled to remember what my name was.

"My... my name is- is..."

I stared at the mirror, completely and utterly lost.

"My... My... I don't know."

⁘

The Bouncy Hair Lady was trying to gather things together while I stood restlessly in a circle, moving the items around.

"Stop touching everything," she snapped at me, taking a bottle out of my hands.

"Sorry," I apologized.

I spun in a circle and when I faced the table, I grabbed a bottle off of it. Bouncy Hair Lady grabbed it away, replacing it with a doll and some pins.

"Ugh. Here. Play with this, and I'll tell you a story."

"Okay," I shrugged, removing and replacing the pins in the doll.

"Once, a beautiful witch was, again, run our of her homeland by pompous, self-righteous, murderous hooligans. You know them as the British Men of Letters."

"Hm," I hummed, nodding at her before focusing on the doll in my hands.

"She sought refuge with a family of witches. All she wanted was a roof over her head and a place to hone her magic. Yet they threw her out like... like she was common trash. Said she wasn't up to snuff."

I turned to look over at her.

"Oh, these witches sound like dicks. I think you got plenty of snuff."

Bouncy Hair Lady smiled, laughing at my statement.

"You really can't remember anything, can you? What a gift, not to recall the things you've done."

She looked away from me while I stared at her curiously.

"What have I done?"

She stopped what she was doing, looking back over at me.

"Oh, you're a killer, Eleanor Winchester."

"Wait, I... I kill people?"

"Scores," she confirmed. "But... but... though you may be a stubborn pain in the arse like your husband and brother-in-law, everything you've done, you've done... for the greater good."

"Oh, and what, that's supposed to make it okay?"

"I wouldn't know," she scoffed, turning her back to me. "You help those other than yourself."

She walked around behind me to stand at my side, while I stared unsurely back at her.

"But me, I've done horrible things, and I told myself it was fine. It was the price of power. And power's what matters, right? Then I met God and his brother."

I furrowed my brow in confusion at that.

"The two most powerful beings in the universe, wasting it on squabbling with each other," Bouncy Hair Lady continued, ignoring my expression. "I thought if- if they can't be happy, or at least satisfied, how can there be any hope for me?"

She looked at me, as if expecting me to answer, but I was at a loss for what to say.

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.

"Because I know you won't remember."

She tapped me on the nose, walking a little ways away as her phone rang, answering it on speaker.

"You're in?" she asked.

"Shh," a voice shushed her on the other end. "Yeah, we're in. Alright. As soon as we get the translation, you cast the spell."

Bouncy Hair Lady nodded her head while I leaned against the table, listening to the conversation.

"This gun is full of witch-killing bullets," a second voice carried through the speaker. "So why don't you go to your grimoire and tell us how to break the memory spell?"

"Boyd wanted to go after you, but I said 'why bother?'" a female voice replied. "You're hunters. You'll hunt us down, right at our doorstep. Hot and... fresh, like pizza."

"We're not asking you again," the first voice growled.

"Abi!" another voice cried out followed by a crash.

"Age nunc intellectum. Age nunc intellectum atque voluntatem omnem meam."

The chanting was followed by the screams of two men, and I stared at the phone in Bouncy Hair Lady's hand worriedly.

"Dean?" I asked. "Sammy?"

⁘

I woke up in the passenger seat of a car, looking around groggily. A yellow paper like the ones from the other room was stuck to the windshield in front of me. I grabbed it, reading what it said.

"'Your husband and brother have been kidnapped by a witch. I found your stupid car and left you here.' Stupid?"

I looked around the car, moving to climb out, but stopped when I spotted another note on the window.

"'Stay'," I read aloud, making a face and sitting back in the seat.

After a minute, I took the note off the window, deciding to ignore it. Climbing out of the car, I made my way around to the trunk. Inside was another note that read 'open me'. When I opened the hidden compartment, I found different weapons. My eyes immediately zeroed in on a large gun, but there was another note that said 'no'. Sighing, I looked around until I found two more notes that read 'witch-killing bullets' and 'this gun'. Grabbing both, I took off toward the nearby house.